


Divorced, beheaded, regenerated

by Nova_Turient



Series: Scrambled (aka: Doctor and Master keep meeting in the wrong order) [6]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage, Fluff, Historical Inaccuracy, Humor, Telepathic Bickering, Telepathy, The Rani gets a mention, Wedding Fluff, Weddings, because I know nothing about history, mention of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29023869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nova_Turient/pseuds/Nova_Turient
Summary: The Doctor turned to the man now standing beside her in Henry VIII clothes, that definitely was not Henry VIII.The Master briefly glanced in her direction, then caught himself, head snapping back to her. He stared, clearly startled by the presence of someone that definitely wasn’t Anne Boleyn, and was doing literally nothing to hide it.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Delgado)
Series: Scrambled (aka: Doctor and Master keep meeting in the wrong order) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2101014
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Divorced, beheaded, regenerated

She met Henry VIII before.

She didn’t consider the implication of meeting him now…

Especially not while posing as the future wife who he got beheaded. Well, the first he got beheaded...he took the habit after that.

The Doctor braced herself on the vanity, as Catherine, one of Anne Boleyn’s handmaids, looked apologetically at her through the mirror.

“Is this _really_ necessary?!” the Doctor wheezed, when she started fastening the corset.

“The king will know you are not his wife otherwise.” she squeaked in response.

“I really don’t think-” the Doctor winced as another girl, Victoria, started brushing vigorously her hair “-that he’ll look at my waist.”

“Where else do you think he’ll look?” Victoria snorted, collecting her hair into a small bun.

“My face?” the Doctor offered, yelping when Catherine finished with the corset and gave it a last tug.

“We’ll cover your face.” Victoria shoved a sharp golden pin into her hair, barely missing her scalp “The least he sees your face, the better.”

“You really don’t like me-” the Doctor turned, lifting her arms when Catherine motioned her to “-do you, Victoria?”

Victoria glared at her, crossing her arms “You had my best friend kidnapped, what do you think?!” she sniped, with the tone of someone who was more than a best friend.

Would you look at that...no historian ever talked about it.

Catherine lowered the dress on her head, and the Doctor nodded at Victoria with a confident smile.

“Don’t worry. My friends have everything under control.”

  
  


\----

  
  


“I haven’t heard from Ryan or Graham in at least half an hour.” Yaz confessed.

The Doctor smile froze “Ah…”

She started scanning the corridor, only her head peering from the room.

“Last time they were still hiding in the cargo bay. They spotted Anne but they said she was very wary.” Yaz continued.

“Yeah, I expect I’d be too if my future husband turned out to be a shapeshifting alien.”

Yaz took a deep breath, like she had been thinking about this for a very long time.

“Doctor, are you sure it’s safe for them up there?”

“Of course!” the Doctor smiled, stepping outside the door and nearly tripping over the hem of her dress “Don’t you trust me?”

Yaz didn’t answer, not with coherent words at least. She clutched one hand on top of the other and let out a shaky laugh, looking at the Doctor with a tense smile.

“You look-”

“Like a scarecrow. I know, tell me about it…” Yaz’s smile fell.

From a room at the end of the corridor, a fanfare of trumpets echoed on the stone walls. The Doctor braced herself, trying not to think too hard about the terrible situation of her brand new body in that uncomfortable dress. At least the shoes were somehow practical.

“Oh, that’s my cue!” she bunched up the dress, flashing a smile at Yaz, before heading swiftly towards the sound “Gotta go! I’ll be back in a jiffy!”

“Be careful!” Yaz called.

The Doctor turned “Yaz, it’s just a wedding, what can go wro-”

She tripped on the dress, almost falling face first on the floor.

  
  


\----

  
  


There was so much that could’ve gone wrong.

For one thing, the people in charge of escorting her, and his soon to be husband, were apparently not that fond of the secret wedding idea. Secondly, the priest absolutely despised her for some reason. Thirdly, Henry was late and it looked like everyone was on edge because of that.

The Doctor tried to take the edge off with a joke about mopeds, dolphins and Abraham Lincoln, before she remembered that mopeds wouldn’t be a thing for a while and Lincoln wasn’t born yet. No wonder they didn’t laugh, they missed more than half of the context. She was sure Yaz would’ve laughed, and Graham would’ve retaliated with more jokes that Ryan would’ve called ‘ _cringy_ ’…

She looked around, at cold unfamiliar faces and icy stares. She already missed her Fam.

Taking the mental note that this new regeneration didn’t like to feel alone and abandoned, she ignored the implication that it may have been all Missy’s fault.

But really, she would’ve given everything just to have someone familiar beside her. Someone that knew her, and laughed at her jokes and didn’t maker her feel like the right shoe on the left foot. Someone that was-

“Apologies for my delay. We can proceed.”

-not him.

The Doctor turned to the man now standing beside her in Henry VIII clothes, that definitely was not Henry VIII. It was the Master. The UNIT Master, with black slicked back hair striped with white, goatee and baby deer eyes. Her mouth fell open in pure indignation.

The Master briefly glanced in her direction, then caught himself, head snapping back to her. He stared, clearly startled by the presence of someone that definitely wasn’t Anne Boleyn, and was doing literally nothing to hide it.

Oh...right, the Doctor considered in the back of her mind, she forgot to lower the veil on her face…

Recognition twinkled in his eyes, and at that point the Doctor knew, that he knew. A sly smile spread on his lips, and she felt her fists clenching. He offered her his arm when the procession started moving forward, she merely sneered at the crook of his elbow, like a snake was gonna jump out to bite her. She strode ahead of him, ignoring his invite. The Master followed, folding his arms behind his back.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

The Master huffed “Could ask you the same question.”

The Doctor rolled her eyes “I’m here to stop you... _apparently_.”

She refused to look at him, and the knowing smile he was throwing at her.

“Ah, my dear.” the Doctor tried to ignore how wistful the moniker made her feel “I must say, envy looks particularly good on you.”

Her eyes snapped at him, taking into his proud expression. She winced, frowning.

“Envy?!”

“Of course.” he stated, calmly, motioning her forward on a narrow staircase “What else would bring you here, if not sheer envy for my current position of power.”

The Doctor scoffed, not bothering to turn towards him “I don’t care about your power…”

She felt him lean over her shoulder to whisper.

“Oh, Rani. We both know you do.”

The Doctor froze and spun on the spot, eyes huge with outrage. The Master frowned, startled. The Doctor left him a handful of seconds to realize what kind of mess he just got himself into. Only when she saw that panic had successfully flooded his face, she snapped.

“Rani?!” she shrieked.

The men of their escort started whispering in confusion amongst each other, glaring at her in contempt, while the priest leading the procession mumbled disapprovingly. The Doctor didn’t care, she was too preoccupied with throwing flaming daggers with her eyes straight through the Master’s ones.

The Master gulped “Oh…”

“Yeah, right.”

She scoffed, spinning on the spot and bunching very un-regally her skirts, to move faster up the stairs. The Master hurried behind her.

He mumbled, right on her tail “I thought-”

“Of course you thought, that’s the problem with you.” she snarked, granting him one single icy look, before she decided she would never look at him ever again.

She turned to glare at him anyway.

“That’s what you do when I’m not around? You flirt with the Rani?” she hissed.

“I don’t _flirt_ with the Rani.” he scoffed “ _Nobody_ flirts with the Rani.”

The Doctor mumbled something that sounded a lot like _‘_ _apparently you do’_ , but decided not to retaliate.

They were entering the wedding room, a small attic on top of a tower, very cosy and secret. The Doctor loved cosy and secret, and decided to look everywhere in the room, but at the man currently standing awkwardly on his feet beside her. The priest coughed, looking them both and joining his hands together. The Doctor did it too, but quickly let them fell down when the priest glared at her. How did human ceremonies even work...that was just stupid.

The Doctor felt the familiar presence of the Master’s mind politely nudging at hers. She grumbled, ignoring him.

“Dearly beloved…” another nudge “...we are gathered here today to join this man and…” this time she clearly felt the sound of knocking, and rolled her eyes “...this woman in holy matrimony…”

The fourth time it happened she huffed, shoving open the connection to let him in.

“ _What?!”_

“ _Why are you in disguise?”_

There was genuine curiosity in his tone, but the Doctor couldn’t help smirking at the evident irritation lingering in the back of his words, like she was invading his territory or something.

“ _Zygons are planning to infiltrate human’s royal families...again. One of them kidnapped Anne Boleyn.”_ she heard him suppress a laugh, threw him a knowing side glance _“You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”_

“ _Obviously.”_

The Master took a step forward “I do.” he answered to the priest’s question. But the Doctor had the distinct feeling that answer was for her.

“ _So, where am I?”_ she asked, as the priest turned towards her for her part of the ceremony. When the Master didn’t answer, she pressed on _“You came here to mess with me, surely. Where’s frilly shirt? Or am I long scarf already?”_

The Master laughed in her mind, and the Doctor smiled fondly.

“ _You’re not here, Doctor. My life doesn’t revolve around you.”_

“ _Oh, but I am here.”_

She turned to look at him, and he looked back. For a moment, she was content to silently look at him, blissfully unaware of the expectant looks everyone was giving her. When reality washed back over her, though, she regrettably had toshake herself to her senses.

“I do.” she hurried to say with a grin, finally breaking the silence.

The Master snorted, and the priest forced out a disgruntled cough.

They both turned face to face, taking each other hands, because apparently that was part of the ceremony, not because the more they shared minds, the more they felt like holding each other closer. The Priest looked to the Master, reciting his vows. The Master started repeating them, but the Doctor could only hear his voice in her mind, whispering into her ears.

“ _I quite like this regeneration.”_ he smiled _“I may have to rush things just to have you.”_

The priest offered her her own vow, and she smiled at the murder threat the Master just casually tossed her way.

“ _Flattery will get you nowhere.” s_ he tilted her head, repeating the vows _“I’m still going to stop you, you know.”_

“ _I’m counting on that.”_

Exchanging the rings looked like the easier part...on paper, but proved to be the most awkward one.

For one thing, Anne Boleyn must’ve had very small fingers, since the only way the damn thing was gonna fit on the Doctor’s was by either filing her fingers off, or sticking it on the tip of her little finger. The Doctor was most grateful when, after a couple trials and errors, the Master decided for the second option.

As a further problem, the Master realized way too late that he still had a Time Ring on his ring finger. The Doctor gave him a judgmental look, to which he replied by pursing his lips in irritation, his moustaches twitching. The Doctor laughed quietly, but other than that, she decided to ignore his dubious means of transport, grabbed his ringless hand instead and carried on with the ceremony.

The Doctor relaxed, conscious of the fact that the ceremony was finally over, and she could shed off that damn dress and go back to save the World. The Master, on the other hand, tensed up, staring at her like a man with his head on the block.

When the priest recited the end of his final sermon, and motioned to them both, the Doctor took in a breath in realization.

“You may kiss the bride.”

_Ah…_

The Master raised his eyebrows, as to agree with whatever sentiment her face conveyed. The Doctor took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. She failed miserably.

“ _He said ‘may’. Maybe you don’t have to.”_

“ _That’s just courtesy, my dear.”_

“ _Well, you better decide quickly, they are staring at us.”_

“ _That’s not up to me.”_

“ _Why would it be up to me?!”_

“ _Because I am the one that gets to kiss you, you need to tell me if I have to.”_

“ _You make it sound like I’m forcing you.”_

“ _You’re wasting time.”_

Someone in the crowd coughed, and she quickly glared in that general direction. The Master tilted his head, as that had just proved his point. The Doctor crossed her arms.

“ _And who said you have to be the one that does the kissing? Maybe I want to kiss you!”_

The Master blinked _“Do you?”_

“ _What?”_

“ _Want to kiss me?”_

“ _Are you suggesting?”_

“ _Do-you-want-to-kiss-me?”_

“ _Well, that’s just a daft question now.”_

“ _Why would it be daft?”_

“ _Because it’s not like I have a choice in the matter.”_

The Master’sjaw grew so tense the Doctor was sure it had to hurt.

“ _Of course you have. They said ‘may’, I don’t have to if you don’t want me to!”_

“ _You said that was just courtesy!”_ the Doctor frowned.

“ _Maybe I was wrong.”_

“ _Well, where’s the news?”_

He stared deeply into her eyes, like he was about to hypnotize her or something.

“ _Doctor, do you want me to kiss you or not?!”_

“Oh, for the love of-”

The Doctor reached out to grab the Master’s head, dragging him towards her, in what was effectively the first kiss of this regeneration.

The whole room gasped.

Like all first kisses it was bad. It was hardly a kiss at all, in fact. She just squished their faces together, barely feeling anything but the scratch of his beard on her chin and under her nose. The Doctor pushed him back, still holding his head to her height. The Master blinked, scanned her face for a long thoughtful moment and finally spoke, loud enough that only she could hear him.

“That was appalling.”

She nodded earnestly “Can we do it again?”

He nodded back “I thought you’d never ask.”

She’d never told him, but she thought she forgot how it was like to kiss him. After all, there was about a millennia and a half between them, and some of her regenerations had not been that careful with their own memory, she would’ve been justified. But as soon as he held her face and leant forward to meet her lips, everything came back to her like no time had passed at all.

The second kiss of this current regeneration proved to be better than her first. And really, it wasn’t fair. He’d been in that body much more than she’d be in hers, he was ought to know what he was doing.

He shifted the hand cupping her cheek to cradle the back of her neck, tipping her head up as he bent down, closing the space between them. He was only two inches taller than her, but she couldn’t blame him from taking advantage of that. Her height during the UNIT days had been unforgiving, and, after all, the Master just loved when she looked up at him, literally and figuratively.

She moved her hands from the side of his face to his shoulder, leaning further into the kiss, painfully aware of the scandalized chattering that had begun around them. It was probably time to (regrettably) end the kiss, before someone tore them apart and the Master miniaturized them out of spite.

The Doctor pushed lightly on the Master’s collarbone, and he reluctantly tore himself away from the kiss. She peered up at him, finding his eyes already open to look at her. The Doctor couldn’t decide if he actually looked absolutely lovestruck, or it was just that closeness that gave her that idea. She grinned either way, sliding a hand down to hold his. He squeezed back, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards.

“Thanks.” she whispered.

The Master frowned “Weird thing to say after a kiss.”

“I kissed you first.”

“Does it matter?”

He stared down at her lips, relentlessly inching closer. It was the Doctor turn to reluctantly tear herself away from him.

“And it’s just polite to thank people when they let you borrow their car.” she quipped.

“What-”

The Doctor took another step back as precaution, waving at him with the hand that had held his until a moment ago, a time ring on her middle finger. The Master looked down to his now ringless hand, and then glared back at her.

“Gotta go save my mates now, but I’d be happy to continue this _conversation_ later! _Bye_!” she grinned, activating the time ring as soon as he strode forward.

  
  


The Master vanished in a flash of light and in a matter of seconds Graham, with his back to her, appeared in his place. The surrounding room much more grim than the pretty and cosy attic she just got married in. Still, the Doctor kept her cheerful grin.

“Hi Graham!” the Doctor greeted him, patting his back.

Graham yapped in alarm, spinning and clutching his chest. When his breathing evened out, he huffed.

“Doc, you’ll give me a heart attack!”

“Lucky I’m a doctor, then.” she started pacing what apparently was a Zygon prison cell “Where’s Ryan?”

Graham placed his hands on his hips, frowning.

“Threatened me with a gun and transformed into one of those sucker monsters.”

The Doctor gasped enthusiastically “Fantastic!”

“Fantastic?” Graham snorted “I tell you my nephew pointed a gun at me and turned into a lobster man, and you say fantastic?”

“Lobsters don’t have suckers, Graham.” the Doctor pointed out, going to fish her sonic screwdriver from her cleavage.

“Does it matter?” Graham squeaked, as the Doctor scanned the room with her sonic “What are you grinning about?” he asked, confused.

The Doctor turned to him, beaming “I’m just...remembering something.”

Graham didn’t ask her what she remembered and the Doctor was a bit disappointed, cause really, it was a nice story. She couldn’t stop thinking about it as they saved Anne Boleyn, tricked the Zygon to leave, found Ryan passed out in a closet and discovered Victoria was a Zygon too, but was so in love with Anne she had decided to stay as a human forever.

The Doctor was even more disappointed when Graham didn’t even bring it up again, as she brought them home.

The only think to resolve this, she thought, was to lay in her bed and think about it.

Think of when he had travelled back in that cold January of 1533 to test out his newly repaired TARDIS. When he met the Master, running away from Whitehall Palace with regal clothes that looked way too good on him. When the Master had glared at him, stomped in his direction with fiery eyes and an accusatory finger trembling towards his face. When he had grabbed his frilly shirt, dragging him down to, as he’d put it when their noses were squished together, continue the _conversation,_ and kissed him silly.

“You’re welcome, Doctor.” she mumbled to herself, curling in her bed to sleep peacefully.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this during the night and I now I'm sleep deprived.   
> Hope you liked it. Thanks for reading!


End file.
